I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.
I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.
Pero en los casos en los que no ha sido costumbre sino el mas intimo impulso el que nos ha llevado a ofrecer amor y veneracion, cuando hemos sido discipulos y amigos de todo corazon, el momento de reconocer que la corriente dominante en nosotros se aparta de la persona querida es amargo y terrible.